Maw Books

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When I picked up the The Romantics by Galt Niederhoffer, I really thought that thecover was ripped and taped back together.  I had to look at really close to make sure that it wasn’t.   It even has a texture change where the tape is and you can see all of these little hairs and stuff.  It was very cool.  Unfortunately, that’s about all I liked about this book.  And I’m sitting here staring at this computer screen because I’m not really sure how to describe it.  So I’m not going to be very insightful and eloquent here.   I simply didn’t care about the characters, I didn’t care about the plot, I didn’t care how it ended.  I was never excited to pick it up to read it.  Nothing glaringly wrong with it but I just personally couldn’t get into it.  I did however, like how I could visualize the book playing out just like a movie and perhaps that’s because Galt Neiderhoffer has produced over twenty films.

But what is this book about anyways, you ask?  From the publisher:

Laura and Lila were once as close as could be–college roommates at the center of a tight-knit group of friends. But the friendship has wilted a bit. Now, ten years after college, the friends–and the boyfriend they shared–have reunited for Lila’s wedding at her family’s seaside estate in Maine.

Laura is reserved, single, and the only Jew in the group, while the bride, Lila, is a WASP-y moneyed golden girl, and the groom, Tom, a swim team star from a working class Catholic background, is a perfect paradox of confidence and confusion.  As the wedding draws near and wine flows faster, the disappointments and desires of the reuniting friends come quickly to the surface. A drunken game on the estate’s dock goes awry when the revelers are pulled out to sea by the current.  When they swim back to shore, they are short by one—the groom. The search throws the group’s shifting allegiances into relief and results in new betrayals as well as confessions.

With Lila’s family’s picture-perfect Maine summer house as the backdrop, Laura not only sees her old friends in a new light, but reassesses herself as well—is she the only one of the group destined to be unmarried into her thirties?  Was it always this obvious that she was the only Jew in a pride of WASPs? Struggling with the traditionally thankless role of maid of honor—not to mention contending with Lila’s formidable mother Augusta—Laura also realizes she can’t stop thinking about her complicated, long and intense relationship with the groom.  But isn’t that relationship far in the past?

A wry observer of cultural and social mores, Niederhoffer creates a pitch-perfect group of characters and a winning novel about friendship, class and love.

Hmm . . . yeah.  So not for me.  But this is going down as one of the more creative covers I’ve seen in a long time.

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